|
On March 20 2013 20:42 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +I'm only told otherwise. You don't get what I'm saying. I said insisting they are right even explaining why they aren't they insist they are.
And no it's not a bad way to coach, you don't understand how much there is to cover in an hour. You must first outline a build, then you can get into detail. People aren't buying 20 hours. They are buying one. It's likely that over your career as a coach has had one or two students who were probably "braindead" and had problems understanding basic logic. However, it seems that when it is something that has happened multiple times for you, then maybe you should look to the inside rather than blaming your students. It's like when I was in public school and my terrible teacher blamed us students for not standing english grammar. Obivously the problem was not with us students (because we were willing to learn) but with the teaching methods of our teacher. Maybe you should take the feedback you get from your students as a sign that there are stuff you could improve with your coaching. Maybe you simply didn't do a good enough job of explain stuff. I watched some of your VODS (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qUO0RvrDwk) And basically the coaching went alot as I expected where you said "Do X, do Y, Do Z" through the whole game. This kind of coaching has no mid/to long term effect on the students skill levels. If I had a subpar understanding of Starcraft and ordered coaching from you, I probably wouldn't understand why you told me to do these things. I would just do them, and eventually I would forget to do them and go back to the old builds I can remember/understand. Maybe your right though, maybe there simply isn't time for a lot more during 1 hour - But I still think the approach can be improved. I would simply focus a lot less on telling the student how to macro, build probes etc, instead I would just have 2-3 very important topics which the student should focus on during the game and I would make sure the student understood the underlying reasons for why he should do X and Y. So to conclude; Coaching can help if you do it right. But telling the student (as you do) to do a 100 different things at once during one game is close to useless.
It's pretty obvious that you take issue with minigun's coaching, but do you fully realize how you're literally saying you would be a better coach/teacher?
It's very easy to make assumptions over and RTS such as it is while playing the game.
Players rest on these these assumptions and create habits (good or bad), but that's not as deep as it goes.
My opinion is that there is any number of factors that go into whether a player will succeed over time, including how stubborn or nervous they are. At the end of the day they still need to make probes, and they still need to make units properly in order to perform a build well. The normal occurrence is, the player does not truly understand why they should do X or Y; they may have an idea, but are oblivious to why those things are being covered. The amount of people who would rather "do" than to "think" would surprise anyone.
Somebody said in another thread that if you don't "get" something, it doesn't automatically mean that you don't understand it. I would compare that to having a feeling or love for the game. This is also not something you can have someone feel by talking them into it, or explaining it as best you can. You could have a build order all laid out to the dot where a player is going to follow it mentally and physically until things start to feel practical.. You could have a basic outline of how a game could pan out if injects are nailed and larvae are used--a game where bad habits are addressed in other words.. You could sit down and address the skill level that a player retains and talk about what other goals are there when it comes to the game, and your steps to how practice can benefit them.. Or you could combine all that you can think of into one unique package, hoping you can articulate yourself perfectly to whom you're dealing with.
you have to understand that these students and teachers are strangers and remain strangers after the hour is up. The only thing they apparently share is a game that is meant to be played (either through the eyes of another player, or personally).
Honestly though, there is a lot of black and white in starcraft. Either you make those probes every ~17 seconds, or you lack the options that are normally available to more competitive players. Pretty simple if you ask me, but many people don't think about that even if they're given all the chances. Remember when Kerrigan told Zagara that she lacked vision?
Yeah, i used that reference.. SERIOUSLY!
|
I do have to partially agree with Hider, though. Many pro players seem to hurry too much with the coaching and don't bother starting from the basics. In my opinion, it's far more important to teach a player why he's scouting and what he's looking to see by doing it and what its effects are and how he should adjust his play by his scouting information instead of just jumping into a game and going "scout now!" "look, he made a factory!" (now the player plays a ladder game, scouts something different and is clueless). Tips for remembering to make workers or some mental tricks and such would also be more helpful than "make workers" and so on. Telling them to do something -now- isn't in my opinion useful at all, they should instead be taught to think for themselves and be able to make those judgement calls correctly themselves.
Many of the progamer coaching videos(including that minigun video) seem like they wouldn't really stick for long at all because they don't seek to fundamentally change the way the player thinks.
|
On March 20 2013 20:42 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +I'm only told otherwise. You don't get what I'm saying. I said insisting they are right even explaining why they aren't they insist they are.
And no it's not a bad way to coach, you don't understand how much there is to cover in an hour. You must first outline a build, then you can get into detail. People aren't buying 20 hours. They are buying one. It's likely that over your career as a coach has had one or two students who were probably "braindead" and had problems understanding basic logic. However, it seems that when it is something that has happened multiple times for you, then maybe you should look to the inside rather than blaming your students. It's like when I was in public school and my terrible teacher blamed us students for not standing english grammar. Obivously the problem was not with us students (because we were willing to learn) but with the teaching methods of our teacher. Maybe you should take the feedback you get from your students as a sign that there are stuff you could improve with your coaching. Maybe you simply didn't do a good enough job of explain stuff. I watched some of your VODS (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qUO0RvrDwk) And basically the coaching went alot as I expected where you said "Do X, do Y, Do Z" through the whole game. This kind of coaching has no mid/to long term effect on the students skill levels. If I had a subpar understanding of Starcraft and ordered coaching from you, I probably wouldn't understand why you told me to do these things. I would just do them, and eventually I would forget to do them and go back to the old builds I can remember/understand. Maybe your right though, maybe there simply isn't time for a lot more during 1 hour - But I still think the approach can be improved. I would simply focus a lot less on telling the student how to macro, build probes etc, instead I would just have 2-3 very important topics which the student should focus on during the game and I would make sure the student understood the underlying reasons for why he should do X and Y. So to conclude; Coaching can help if you do it right. But telling the student (as you do) to do a 100 different things at once during one game is close to useless.
"Telling the student ( as you do) to do a 100 different things at once during one game is close to useless." I don't even know how you can say that. I've coached hundreds and this is the style I've used every time. What experience are you basing this off of? It works, whether you like it or believe it, it does. You can say it doesn't all you want.
I was only talking about a select few. The attitude "I am always right" is how I would describe them. If they think they are right and refuse to change their mind.
I'm trying to get the student the best value for their money. That IMO is running through a couple games, showing them what it feels like to macro properly (yes telling them to build probes and what not) just so they see what it looks like, and giving them macro/micro tips as I see fit. A bad build order can be a huge hinderence in improving. More than people realize.
1 hour is just not enough time. I have had 0 complaints about my coaching. Maybe they say it's bad behind my back, but I assume it's at least worthwhile since I haven't had any complaints. Like I said many many many people message me days/weeks after telling me how much it helped. Based on this feedback I assumed I'm doing an appropriate job.
On March 20 2013 21:36 Shikyo wrote:
I do have to partially agree with Hider, though. Many pro players seem to hurry too much with the coaching and don't bother starting from the basics. In my opinion, it's far more important to teach a player why he's scouting and what he's looking to see by doing it and what its effects are and how he should adjust his play by his scouting information instead of just jumping into a game and going "scout now!" "look, he made a factory!" (now the player plays a ladder game, scouts something different and is clueless). Tips for remembering to make workers or some mental tricks and such would also be more helpful than "make workers" and so on. Telling them to do something -now- isn't in my opinion useful at all, they should instead be taught to think for themselves and be able to make those judgement calls correctly themselves.
Many of the progamer coaching videos(including that minigun video) seem like they wouldn't really stick for long at all because they don't seek to fundamentally change the way the player thinks.
I've literally done hundreds and hundreds of hours of coaching. I was only talking about a select few. The attitude "I am always right" is how I would describe them. If they think they are right and refuse to change their mind. 99% of the students I have no problem with.
"Many pro players seem to hurry too much with the coaching and don't bother starting from the basics. In my opinion, it's far more important to teach a player why he's scouting and what he's looking to see by doing it and what its effects are and how he should adjust his play by his scouting information instead of just jumping into a game and going "scout now!" "look, he made a factory!" (now the player plays a ladder game, scouts something different and is clueless). "
I'm pretty sure I emphaize this in any lessons. One game we will run through the build with his opponent going factory. We go through the proper response. The next game he scouts a fast 3rd, we do the appropriate response, and so on. I've emphaized this point before but I'll do it again....
I only have ONE hour to work with in most cases. That's just soooo little time. It takes 1000+ games to get a proper grasp on a matchup. How can anyone teach it in an hour?? You can't. I can only give them the best value for their money. That imo is the way I'm doing it. I could be wrong, but the results seem to prove otherwise.
|
On March 21 2013 03:34 ROOTMinigun wrote:Show nested quote +On March 20 2013 20:42 Hider wrote:I'm only told otherwise. You don't get what I'm saying. I said insisting they are right even explaining why they aren't they insist they are.
And no it's not a bad way to coach, you don't understand how much there is to cover in an hour. You must first outline a build, then you can get into detail. People aren't buying 20 hours. They are buying one. It's likely that over your career as a coach has had one or two students who were probably "braindead" and had problems understanding basic logic. However, it seems that when it is something that has happened multiple times for you, then maybe you should look to the inside rather than blaming your students. It's like when I was in public school and my terrible teacher blamed us students for not standing english grammar. Obivously the problem was not with us students (because we were willing to learn) but with the teaching methods of our teacher. Maybe you should take the feedback you get from your students as a sign that there are stuff you could improve with your coaching. Maybe you simply didn't do a good enough job of explain stuff. I watched some of your VODS (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qUO0RvrDwk) And basically the coaching went alot as I expected where you said "Do X, do Y, Do Z" through the whole game. This kind of coaching has no mid/to long term effect on the students skill levels. If I had a subpar understanding of Starcraft and ordered coaching from you, I probably wouldn't understand why you told me to do these things. I would just do them, and eventually I would forget to do them and go back to the old builds I can remember/understand. Maybe your right though, maybe there simply isn't time for a lot more during 1 hour - But I still think the approach can be improved. I would simply focus a lot less on telling the student how to macro, build probes etc, instead I would just have 2-3 very important topics which the student should focus on during the game and I would make sure the student understood the underlying reasons for why he should do X and Y. So to conclude; Coaching can help if you do it right. But telling the student (as you do) to do a 100 different things at once during one game is close to useless. "Telling the student ( as you do) to do a 100 different things at once during one game is close to useless." I don't even know how you can say that. I've coached hundreds and this is the style I've used every time. What experience are you basing this off of? It works, whether you like it or believe it, it does. You can say it doesn't all you want. I was only talking about a select few. The attitude "I am always right" is how I would describe them. If they think they are right and refuse to change their mind. I'm trying to get the student the best value for their money. That IMO is running through a couple games, showing them what it feels like to macro properly (yes telling them to build probes and what not) just so they see what it looks like, and giving them macro/micro tips as I see fit. A bad build order can be a huge hinderence in improving. More than people realize. 1 hour is just not enough time. I have had 0 complaints about my coaching. Maybe they say it's bad behind my back, but I assume it's at least worthwhile since I haven't had any complaints. Like I said many many many people message me days/weeks after telling me how much it helped. Based on this feedback I assumed I'm doing an appropriate job.
I am not sure why you are that harsh at each other. Its a more than valid to criticize a coach who is doing the kind of coaching you do, since it is very inefficient compared to other ways of coaching. Just telling people what to do is the reason you need that many lessons and most likely the reason you think coaching beginners is hard. Of course it takes a long time for someone to understand the game if you do not actually explain the theory behind it.
If i tell a kid that 3*4=12 he is not able to mutiply, since i didnt tell him how to do so. OR the more easy way to explain why this kind of caoching isnt really good:
Basically its only telling the students to get better instead of really telling them how to do that.
But since people know your way of coaching.. and pay you.. they are obivously fine doing it that way.
|
sry misclick  didnt mean to double post
|
On March 21 2013 05:40 JustAGame wrote:Show nested quote +On March 21 2013 03:34 ROOTMinigun wrote:On March 20 2013 20:42 Hider wrote:I'm only told otherwise. You don't get what I'm saying. I said insisting they are right even explaining why they aren't they insist they are.
And no it's not a bad way to coach, you don't understand how much there is to cover in an hour. You must first outline a build, then you can get into detail. People aren't buying 20 hours. They are buying one. It's likely that over your career as a coach has had one or two students who were probably "braindead" and had problems understanding basic logic. However, it seems that when it is something that has happened multiple times for you, then maybe you should look to the inside rather than blaming your students. It's like when I was in public school and my terrible teacher blamed us students for not standing english grammar. Obivously the problem was not with us students (because we were willing to learn) but with the teaching methods of our teacher. Maybe you should take the feedback you get from your students as a sign that there are stuff you could improve with your coaching. Maybe you simply didn't do a good enough job of explain stuff. I watched some of your VODS (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qUO0RvrDwk) And basically the coaching went alot as I expected where you said "Do X, do Y, Do Z" through the whole game. This kind of coaching has no mid/to long term effect on the students skill levels. If I had a subpar understanding of Starcraft and ordered coaching from you, I probably wouldn't understand why you told me to do these things. I would just do them, and eventually I would forget to do them and go back to the old builds I can remember/understand. Maybe your right though, maybe there simply isn't time for a lot more during 1 hour - But I still think the approach can be improved. I would simply focus a lot less on telling the student how to macro, build probes etc, instead I would just have 2-3 very important topics which the student should focus on during the game and I would make sure the student understood the underlying reasons for why he should do X and Y. So to conclude; Coaching can help if you do it right. But telling the student (as you do) to do a 100 different things at once during one game is close to useless. "Telling the student ( as you do) to do a 100 different things at once during one game is close to useless." I don't even know how you can say that. I've coached hundreds and this is the style I've used every time. What experience are you basing this off of? It works, whether you like it or believe it, it does. You can say it doesn't all you want. I was only talking about a select few. The attitude "I am always right" is how I would describe them. If they think they are right and refuse to change their mind. I'm trying to get the student the best value for their money. That IMO is running through a couple games, showing them what it feels like to macro properly (yes telling them to build probes and what not) just so they see what it looks like, and giving them macro/micro tips as I see fit. A bad build order can be a huge hinderence in improving. More than people realize. 1 hour is just not enough time. I have had 0 complaints about my coaching. Maybe they say it's bad behind my back, but I assume it's at least worthwhile since I haven't had any complaints. Like I said many many many people message me days/weeks after telling me how much it helped. Based on this feedback I assumed I'm doing an appropriate job. I am not sure why you are that harsh at each other. Its a more than valid to criticize a coach who is doing the kind of coaching you do, since it is very inefficient compared to other ways of coaching. Just telling people what to do is the reason you need that many lessons and most likely the reason you think coaching beginners is hard. Of course it takes a long time for someone to understand the game if you do not actually explain the theory behind it. If i tell a kid that 3*4=12 he is not able to mutiply, since i didnt tell him how to do so. OR the more easy way to explain why this kind of caoching isnt really good: Basically its only telling the students to get better instead of really telling them how to do that. But since people know your way of coaching.. and pay you.. they are obivously fine doing it that way.
Where are you getting this information?
I don't think coaching beginners is hard. They just learn at a much slower pace when makes coaching even less worthwhile for them.
I explain why they are doing things. I don't just tell them to blindly build a robo bay at this point. Or why they are cutting probes. I'm not just going through a build with them, I'm going through it while telling them why. I dunno why you don't think I do.
|
On March 21 2013 06:10 ROOTMinigun wrote:
Where are you getting this information?
What kind of exercises do you give your students ?
|
On March 21 2013 07:34 JustAGame wrote:Show nested quote +On March 21 2013 06:10 ROOTMinigun wrote:
Where are you getting this information?
What kind of exercises do you give your students ?
There isn't better exercises for starcraft 2 than queing up ladder games.
|
On March 21 2013 07:47 ROOTMinigun wrote:Show nested quote +On March 21 2013 07:34 JustAGame wrote:On March 21 2013 06:10 ROOTMinigun wrote:
Where are you getting this information?
What kind of exercises do you give your students ? There isn't better exercises for starcraft 2 than queing up ladder games.
I will just post the short version here.
Mechanics:
The first minutes of a game the player has too little to do to improve the mechsnics, in late game, the player has too much to do and start learning bad habits instead of solid mechanics. The overall efficiency when practicing mechanics is very low in ladder games, isolated exercises have 5 to 10 times the efficiency.
Decision making:
Only 1 out of 3 games is against the right race and way less are against the right build to actually practice what you want to practice.
Additionally, how do you learn decision making while playing?
If you win.. was your decision good ? you dont know.. maybe your opponent was just bad, maybe you made the right decision for the wrong reasons ?
If you lose.. was your decision bad ? Which decision was bad? Maybe your opponent just got lucky with random transitions? Maybe he was better at macro ? Maybe your decision was good but your micro was bad?
Actually.. there is no way to tell by just playing.
No idea why you think that massing ladder games is the best exercise. There is a reason that EVERYWHERE outside of esports, poeple use isolated exercises and theoretical exercises to practice, while "playing" is only a small part of the training.
But back to your initial question:
Asuming you teach your students deep game understanding and tell them how to practice mechanics. Why is there no real exercise behind it ?
If you tell your student how to actually improve.. why is he just doing the same exercise he did before ?
Somehow it doesnt really make sense to me.. since either you tell them how to improve.. and they actually do this after.. or you dont tell them and they just to the same thing they did before. So i think, you just tell them some stuff they didnt know before and dont give them any real exercises to actually improve.
But THATS the point of coaching: You give people exercises and explain them how to improve instead of only teaching them during the lesson. 99% of the progress i made at playing a music instrument was done at home in my practice sessions. The lessons are there to identify what i need to practice and telling me how to practice it.
|
On March 21 2013 03:34 ROOTMinigun wrote:Show nested quote +On March 20 2013 20:42 Hider wrote:I'm only told otherwise. You don't get what I'm saying. I said insisting they are right even explaining why they aren't they insist they are.
And no it's not a bad way to coach, you don't understand how much there is to cover in an hour. You must first outline a build, then you can get into detail. People aren't buying 20 hours. They are buying one. It's likely that over your career as a coach has had one or two students who were probably "braindead" and had problems understanding basic logic. However, it seems that when it is something that has happened multiple times for you, then maybe you should look to the inside rather than blaming your students. It's like when I was in public school and my terrible teacher blamed us students for not standing english grammar. Obivously the problem was not with us students (because we were willing to learn) but with the teaching methods of our teacher. Maybe you should take the feedback you get from your students as a sign that there are stuff you could improve with your coaching. Maybe you simply didn't do a good enough job of explain stuff. I watched some of your VODS (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qUO0RvrDwk) And basically the coaching went alot as I expected where you said "Do X, do Y, Do Z" through the whole game. This kind of coaching has no mid/to long term effect on the students skill levels. If I had a subpar understanding of Starcraft and ordered coaching from you, I probably wouldn't understand why you told me to do these things. I would just do them, and eventually I would forget to do them and go back to the old builds I can remember/understand. Maybe your right though, maybe there simply isn't time for a lot more during 1 hour - But I still think the approach can be improved. I would simply focus a lot less on telling the student how to macro, build probes etc, instead I would just have 2-3 very important topics which the student should focus on during the game and I would make sure the student understood the underlying reasons for why he should do X and Y. So to conclude; Coaching can help if you do it right. But telling the student (as you do) to do a 100 different things at once during one game is close to useless. "Telling the student ( as you do) to do a 100 different things at once during one game is close to useless." I don't even know how you can say that. I've coached hundreds and this is the style I've used every time. What experience are you basing this off of? It works, whether you like it or believe it, it does. You can say it doesn't all you want. I was only talking about a select few. The attitude "I am always right" is how I would describe them. If they think they are right and refuse to change their mind. I'm trying to get the student the best value for their money. That IMO is running through a couple games, showing them what it feels like to macro properly (yes telling them to build probes and what not) just so they see what it looks like, and giving them macro/micro tips as I see fit. A bad build order can be a huge hinderence in improving. More than people realize.
This is incredibly true, especially if you're coaching someone who has played a decent number of games and therefore has a decent amount of APM (say, >60 or something). Most people who are in lower leagues just don't understand how much their play will improve if they just get in the habit of making probes, pylons and warping in units every 20-30 seconds. I have very little experience coaching, but of people I have coached I often hear back about how much their play has improve because I told them to use camera hotkeys to warp in units, or some other basic macro skill.
It's much more difficult to teach deep understanding or nuances of timings. I would say that those things are more or less completely useless until you can macro and micro adequately. What good is it for a gold player to know what time they need to have some crucial unit or upgrade out if they can't ever get it out that fast and their opponents can't hit the proper timings to punish them for not doing so?
No idea why you think that massing ladder games is the best exercise. There is a reason that EVERYWHERE outside of esports, poeple use isolated exercises and theoretical exercises to practice, while "playing" is only a small part of the training.
This isn't even true for most things until you get to a decent level to begin with. In most things, people do them casually for a decent amount of time before they start running drills and other targeted practice. Not only are drills a good way to get really bored and not want to do it anymore, I don't even know that it's optimal. In rock climbing, many of the best in the world say that the best practice for climbing is climbing, and it seems like this is true except for very strong climbers. I think the same applies to starcraft.
|
On March 21 2013 07:47 ROOTMinigun wrote:Show nested quote +On March 21 2013 07:34 JustAGame wrote:On March 21 2013 06:10 ROOTMinigun wrote:
Where are you getting this information?
What kind of exercises do you give your students ? There isn't better exercises for starcraft 2 than queing up ladder games.
I'll totally disagree with this. Of course my example will be from Brood War, but in it I was a 60 APM player who knew some things and the general idea of how to play but still was really really bad. After like 300 games of iccup I still didn't improve much at all, so I decided to just practice APM and multitasking. After about a week of just wanting to become faster and faster and learn to control units and macro at the same time, my APM went up to around 250 and after a while I went up to C-rank with like a 21-3 w/l(Had never even been near C before that) and so on. Mass laddering wouldn't have helped with that at all(or maybe it would have by spending like 20 times the amount of time), it was very specific training to improve a very specific point. Mass laddering is in my opinion ONLY useful if you do them to practice a specific point. After you reach it and it becomes natural (<- important), you are to stop laddering, gain a new specific focus, practice it 1v0, and then focus on improving it while laddering .
The above is entirely my opinion. Everyone is allowed to disagree. I am not saying that I am objectively correct at all. I do heavily disagree with mass ladder being even close to a good way to improve, though.
The tricks I'm talking about are mental tricks to -remember- making probes and pylons, not useless things like saving 5 minerals by building pylon x with a specific probe
|
On March 21 2013 08:31 JustAGame wrote:Show nested quote +On March 21 2013 07:47 ROOTMinigun wrote:On March 21 2013 07:34 JustAGame wrote:On March 21 2013 06:10 ROOTMinigun wrote:
Where are you getting this information?
What kind of exercises do you give your students ? There isn't better exercises for starcraft 2 than queing up ladder games. I will just post the short version here. Mechanics: The first minutes of a game the player has too little to do to improve the mechsnics, in late game, the player has too much to do and start learning bad habits instead of solid mechanics. The overall efficiency when practicing mechanics is very low in ladder games, isolated exercises have 5 to 10 times the efficiency. Decision making: Only 1 out of 3 games is against the right race and way less are against the right build to actually practice what you want to practice. Additionally, how do you learn decision making while playing? If you win.. was your decision good ? you dont know.. maybe your opponent was just bad, maybe you made the right decision for the wrong reasons ? If you lose.. was your decision bad ? Which decision was bad? Maybe your opponent just got lucky with random transitions? Maybe he was better at macro ? Maybe your decision was good but your micro was bad? Actually.. there is no way to tell by just playing. No idea why you think that massing ladder games is the best exercise. There is a reason that EVERYWHERE outside of esports, poeple use isolated exercises and theoretical exercises to practice, while "playing" is only a small part of the training. But back to your initial question: Asuming you teach your students deep game understanding and tell them how to practice mechanics. Why is there no real exercise behind it ? If you tell your student how to actually improve.. why is he just doing the same exercise he did before ? Somehow it doesnt really make sense to me.. since either you tell them how to improve.. and they actually do this after.. or you dont tell them and they just to the same thing they did before. So i think, you just tell them some stuff they didnt know before and dont give them any real exercises to actually improve.But THATS the point of coaching: You give people exercises and explain them how to improve instead of only teaching them during the lesson. 99% of the progress i made at playing a music instrument was done at home in my practice sessions. The lessons are there to identify what i need to practice and telling me how to practice it.
You are giving them "exercises" I suppose. Only they are practicing many exercises at once. Although they COULD if they wanted to only practice one at a time. Such as trying to use observer more, trying to get supply blocked less, or just trying to follow the build properly.
I don't understand what you are confused about. During the coaching lesson you teach them good habits/micro/macro techniques, and then they practice it in real time during ladder. What exercises are you going to teach? You want me to tell them to go play dodgeball custom to practice accuracy? Go play the micro arena to practice vs random unit compositions? There is no better practice than ladder/custom games. Nothing comes close.
No idea why you think massing ladder games isn't the best exercise. Because well, it is.
On March 21 2013 08:43 Shikyo wrote:Show nested quote +On March 21 2013 07:47 ROOTMinigun wrote:On March 21 2013 07:34 JustAGame wrote:On March 21 2013 06:10 ROOTMinigun wrote:
Where are you getting this information?
What kind of exercises do you give your students ? There isn't better exercises for starcraft 2 than queing up ladder games. I'll totally disagree with this. Of course my example will be from Brood War, but in it I was a 60 APM player who knew some things and the general idea of how to play but still was really really bad. After like 300 games of iccup I still didn't improve much at all, so I decided to just practice APM and multitasking. After about a week of just wanting to become faster and faster and learn to control units and macro at the same time, my APM went up to around 250 and after a while I went up to C-rank with like a 21-3 w/l(Had never even been near C before that) and so on. Mass laddering wouldn't have helped with that at all(or maybe it would have by spending like 20 times the amount of time), it was very specific training to improve a very specific point. Mass laddering is in my opinion ONLY useful if you do them to practice a specific point. After you reach it and it becomes natural (<- important), you are to stop laddering, gain a new specific focus, practice it 1v0, and then focus on improving it while laddering . The above is entirely my opinion. Everyone is allowed to disagree. I am not saying that I am objectively correct at all. I do heavily disagree with mass ladder being even close to a good way to improve, though. The tricks I'm talking about are mental tricks to -remember- making probes and pylons, not useless things like saving 5 minerals by building pylon x with a specific probe
I had 60 apm when I first started this game. How did I improve this? I laddered and now I have around 250-300. If you are wanting to improve one thing specifically than ofc just going to a custom game or whatever is going to improve that. But most people I am talking about don't have the time to specifically set aside for "increasing apm". Overall laddering is going to be the best use of their time.
|
On March 21 2013 08:46 ROOTMinigun wrote:
You are giving them "exercises" I suppose. Only they are practicing many exercises at once. Although they COULD if they wanted to only practice one at a time. Such as trying to use observer more, trying to get supply blocked less, or just trying to follow the build properly.
They COULD also just play better. yes.. they could micro better.. use their scouts better.. not get supply blocked. THATS what i am talking about.. you dont tell them how to actually do this.. just telling them that they need to do so and giving them some tipps at best. There are real exercises for that.
But after i posted WHY mass ladder games are not good for practice and you ignored all of this to just say "they are the best exercise" even though i showed that they are useless for decision making and far away from optimal for mechanics, i dont feel like the discussion is going anywhere.
To the other guy: (sorry for not quoting.. its late over here)
People who climp do not start climbing some rocks. That would lead to half or even more of them hurting themselves or dying right away.
They start with general sports to get the needed fitness (unless they got this already ofc). After that they usually train their strength for the hands and fingers and practice in special walls with colored spots to grab ( i dont know the word.. sry). After they actually practice the endurance, strength and some basic climbing skills, they do the real thing. After all that is done.. yes the real wall is very good practice, while additional isolated exercises are usually done to warm up or practice when they feel the need. The reason the real wall is the "best" training is not because its such an efficient way to practice. Its simply the fact, that each isolated exercise is "isolated" and at some point its needed to bring them all together. There is no other way to do so.
In sc2 its the same, you got basic skills like mechanical skills, that are best practiced in isolated exercises. Once again: playing the game has very little efficiency at practicing mechanics, simply due to the fact that the early game is so easy to handle that you have a low practice effect, while the late game is too much too handle for most players. The best training is isolated mechanics exercises. After those are done (remember the basics for climbing) you need to get to the real thing. Even though the efficiency is very low, there is no other way, simply because isolated exercises are only useful for the basics but wont help you to combine it all.
-> The best way to practice mechanics is by doing isolated exercises and after (takes some weeks) you slowly combine it all until you can play a full game.
Meaning: You dont practice your finger/hand strength and your endurance in mid air in a real wall (that might hurt or kill you), same as you should not practice the speed and precision of several keycombinations while playing sc2.
For decision making, playing a lot is useless for the reasons i told before. There is NO way to evaluate your decision making while playing and adding the fact that you will make 100 different decisions during your ladder games, there is not even a way to play the same situation twice per day on purpose. The only real way to evaluate the decision making is by watching the replay and analyzing it. Without analyzing the replay its impossible to tell how good your decisions were. The replay is the only way to access all information needed.
Watching the replay for 1 minute only, will not help much, since most of the questions (see my previous post) will still not be answered. A very experienced player might be able to get the needed info within a few minutes, but a "student" usually needs quite a long time until he figures out a) which decision was good/bad b)for what reason it was good/bad and c ) which decision would have been better.
Just to give you an idea what kind of exercises i give my students:
Beginning:
100% isolated exercises
The stuff practiced in the isolated exercises is added up one by one to a "real game" (there are different ways of doing it)
so it slowly changes to ~70% isolated exercises and ~30% playing
When it comes to decision making, it changes to about: 1/3 isolated exercises, 1/3 playing 1/3 analyzing replays
I am fine to compare the methods if you want. Every silver/gold/platinum student i had (who did the exercises i gave them) got to master league in less than 3 months, everyone who finished the coaching (~12 lessons) got to top 8 master league.
BUT you are right.. its really boring to practice at the highest efficiency and most people do not like that way, no matter how good it is. It is sick boring, lots of work and a there is no fun at all.
|
On March 21 2013 09:45 JustAGame wrote:Show nested quote +On March 21 2013 08:46 ROOTMinigun wrote:
You are giving them "exercises" I suppose. Only they are practicing many exercises at once. Although they COULD if they wanted to only practice one at a time. Such as trying to use observer more, trying to get supply blocked less, or just trying to follow the build properly. People who climp do not start climbing some rocks. That would lead to half or even more of them hurting themselves or dying right away. They start with general sports to get the needed fitness (unless they got this already ofc). After that they usually train their strength for the hands and fingers and practice in special walls with colored spots to grab ( i dont know the word.. sry). After they actually practice the endurance, strength and some basic climbing skills, they do the real thing. After all that is done.. yes the real wall is very good practice, while additional isolated exercises are usually done to warm up or practice when they feel the need. The reason the real wall is the "best" training is not because its such an efficient way to practice. Its simply the fact, that each isolated exercise is "isolated" and at some point its needed to bring them all together. There is no other way to do so. In sc2 its the same, you got basic skills like mechanical skills, that are best practiced in isolated exercises. Once again: playing the game has very little efficiency at practicing mechanics, simply due to the fact that the early game is so easy to handle that you have a low practice effect, while the late game is too much too handle for most players. The best training is isolated mechanics exercises. After those are done (remember the basics for climbing) you need to get to the real thing. Even though the efficiency is very low, there is no other way, simply because isolated exercises are only useful for the basics but wont help you to combine it all. -> The best way to practice mechanics is by doing isolated exercises and after (takes some weeks) you slowly combine it all until you can play a full game. Meaning: You dont practice your finger/hand strength and your endurance in mid air in a real wall (that might hurt or kill you), same as you should not practice the speed and precision of several keycombinations while playing sc2.
I probably shouldn't have used climbing as an analogy since people aren't going to be familiar with it, but:
First of all a lot of people (probably the majority of them nowadays) wouldn't differentiate by saying that climbing outdoors is rock climbing while climbing indoors is training. Also, "more than half" of people dying or being seriously injured if they started by climbing outdoors is blatantly absurd. That's how the sport began, since climbing gyms didn't exist, and far fewer than half of them died or got injured.
Secondly, if someone is bad at climbing, they'll be climbing 5.5 or 5.6 (equivalent to bronze league). Nobody would suggest to these people that they do targeted training, they would just say "climb more." (maybe if they're fat someone might suggest diet+running to lose some weight) Even people who are climbing in the 5.10 range are probably best off just climbing more, and a lot of elite climbers got into 5.12 territory or higher before they ever trained, which is basically GM-level of difficulty. People generally don't suggest practicing finger strength (campus board/hangboard/etc.) until they're at least climbing ~5.11, since it's just not as effective and it's more likely to lead to injury.
In both climbing and SC2, it is probably true that there are more efficient ways to improve than just climbing and playing SC2. However, both "sports" are in their relative infancy compared to things like basketball/football/olympic lifting/etc. People haven't developed really effective training methodologies other than "just play more" yet, and they probably won't for a long time.
I think the same holds for SC2. Unless someone is at least masters, they'll probably be best off just playing more games and getting some basic guidance from a coach about how to macro. Once you're already really good, maybe there are some basic multitask maps that are useful (I know that vVvTitan had a map that he played on to do injects+creep spread while macroing which he claimed helped him a lot), but I just doubt that these things are that effective for players who aren't already pretty good.
As for the rest of your post, I'll just say that a) I don't think it's that hard for someone to analyze their own replay and b) if you do have a coach, he'll probably look at the replay and tell you you had 3k/2k and only used 1 hotkey the whole game. And he'll be right that this is why you lost. Every now and then the loss will be to something like not knowing how to beat a 6 pool, but in my experience those are less common.
|
On March 21 2013 11:33 iSTime wrote:Show nested quote +On March 21 2013 09:45 JustAGame wrote:On March 21 2013 08:46 ROOTMinigun wrote:
You are giving them "exercises" I suppose. Only they are practicing many exercises at once. Although they COULD if they wanted to only practice one at a time. Such as trying to use observer more, trying to get supply blocked less, or just trying to follow the build properly. People who climp do not start climbing some rocks. That would lead to half or even more of them hurting themselves or dying right away. They start with general sports to get the needed fitness (unless they got this already ofc). After that they usually train their strength for the hands and fingers and practice in special walls with colored spots to grab ( i dont know the word.. sry). After they actually practice the endurance, strength and some basic climbing skills, they do the real thing. After all that is done.. yes the real wall is very good practice, while additional isolated exercises are usually done to warm up or practice when they feel the need. The reason the real wall is the "best" training is not because its such an efficient way to practice. Its simply the fact, that each isolated exercise is "isolated" and at some point its needed to bring them all together. There is no other way to do so. In sc2 its the same, you got basic skills like mechanical skills, that are best practiced in isolated exercises. Once again: playing the game has very little efficiency at practicing mechanics, simply due to the fact that the early game is so easy to handle that you have a low practice effect, while the late game is too much too handle for most players. The best training is isolated mechanics exercises. After those are done (remember the basics for climbing) you need to get to the real thing. Even though the efficiency is very low, there is no other way, simply because isolated exercises are only useful for the basics but wont help you to combine it all. -> The best way to practice mechanics is by doing isolated exercises and after (takes some weeks) you slowly combine it all until you can play a full game. Meaning: You dont practice your finger/hand strength and your endurance in mid air in a real wall (that might hurt or kill you), same as you should not practice the speed and precision of several keycombinations while playing sc2. I probably shouldn't have used climbing as an analogy since people aren't going to be familiar with it, but: First of all a lot of people (probably the majority of them nowadays) wouldn't differentiate by saying that climbing outdoors is rock climbing while climbing indoors is training. Also, "more than half" of people dying or being seriously injured if they started by climbing outdoors is blatantly absurd. That's how the sport began, since climbing gyms didn't exist, and far fewer than half of them died or got injured. Secondly, if someone is bad at climbing, they'll be climbing 5.5 or 5.6 (equivalent to bronze league). Nobody would suggest to these people that they do targeted training, they would just say "climb more." (maybe if they're fat someone might suggest diet+running to lose some weight) Even people who are climbing in the 5.10 range are probably best off just climbing more, and a lot of elite climbers got into 5.12 territory or higher before they ever trained, which is basically GM-level of difficulty. People generally don't suggest practicing finger strength (campus board/hangboard/etc.) until they're at least climbing ~5.11, since it's just not as effective and it's more likely to lead to injury. In both climbing and SC2, it is probably true that there are more efficient ways to improve than just climbing and playing SC2. However, both "sports" are in their relative infancy compared to things like basketball/football/olympic lifting/etc. People haven't developed really effective training methodologies other than "just play more" yet, and they probably won't for a long time. I think the same holds for SC2. Unless someone is at least masters, they'll probably be best off just playing more games and getting some basic guidance from a coach about how to macro. Once you're already really good, maybe there are some basic multitask maps that are useful (I know that vVvTitan had a map that he played on to do injects+creep spread while macroing which he claimed helped him a lot), but I just doubt that these things are that effective for players who aren't already pretty good. As for the rest of your post, I'll just say that a) I don't think it's that hard for someone to analyze their own replay and b) if you do have a coach, he'll probably look at the replay and tell you you had 3k/2k and only used 1 hotkey the whole game. And he'll be right that this is why you lost. Every now and then the loss will be to something like not knowing how to beat a 6 pool, but in my experience those are less common.
Btw, just to say this again: you are totally right about how boring isolated training is. Its really no fun at all and can ruin the game for you. But its still the most efficient way of practicing. Casuals who just want to improve but do not actually care about how fast or how far they get, shouldnt do it.
What i said about the injuries was meant at the highest level of climbing. If an untrained person starts at the highest difficulty right away, he will hurt himself most likely.
Climbing an indoor beginner wall is sick easy compared to climbing at the highest difficulty.
Playing at bronze without making mistakes is the same as playing in masters. The game is the same. You have the same units, the same stuff, Yes your opponent is weaker, but that only means that you can do some mistakes and still win. Climbing a low level wall is a different thing than climbing a high level wall. Its "not the same game". You may not make mistakes at both, because if you do so.. you will fall.
Climbing at lower difficulty is like isolated exercise, since you artificialy lower your total workload. Playing at bronze is the same "do it all at once" as master league, with the difference that the bronze league player cannot do it and messes up left and right.
To get a real comparism to climbing: make it 1v1. If i start climbing at the highest possible difficulty against another beginner, i will not practice, but mostlikely go straight to the hospital (same as he does). As i said.. the difficulty levels are actually some form of isolated training.
The sports i did for more than just a few weeks: table tennis, swimming, judo, karate, badminton and chess (  ) i even got a few medals there from small local events.
Table tennis: the first 30 minutes of every single training session was pure isolated endurance training. After that we practiced topspins, etc etc Only a very minimal amount was actually playing. Especially the new guys who needed to practice the technique didnt play at all. If at all , the only "games" we played, were predesigned frequenzes like player A hits this way, player b hits this way and start again.
The same goes for Badminton, but since this was the only pure caasual sport i did, it included more playing than the others.
In both judo and karate we did isolated exercises for endurance, flexibility, speed, technique only. Way later we started doing some minor sequences like hit + block or grab + throw, but thats it. Those who already were in there for much longer did some fights, but even for them it was less than 20% of the total training. (So for beginners 100% isolated, for advanced students at least 80% isolated exercises)
And now chess.. the same thing. Isolated exercises.. Openings, special situations etc etc. very little actual playing.
The reason people do isolated exercises is simple: When you do the real game/soprt what ever, you need to combine many individual skills. For sports its usually endurance, strength, speed, technique.
If you start by just doing the full thing right away, each of your idividual skills is weak. To actually focus on the game you must know the technique. You do not learn the technique by just doing it all together, its way too much to handle. So you start with isolated exercises for the technique and endurance etc.. you do each thing in isolated exercises. Once you have done this and brought all your skills to a good level, you can start adding them up one by one, e.g. by playing a fixed sequence in badmintoon (e.g. long ball, short ball, short ball, long ball and repeat) This will help you to learn putting all the skills together. If you go to a random badminton club you will see, that those players who did NOT do the isolated training in the first place will mess up their technique, their movement and their positioning all the time. They improve very slowly. Those who did the isolated exercises before, do everything right, position well, have a good movement and only need to practice putting it all together. They are much better and improve much faster.
And the same thing is true for SC2. If you practice by just playing, you basically do everything wrong. You just try to do it all at once while constantly messing up keycombinations and other stuff. Why does a low player use his mouse instead of his keyboard? Because using the keyboard is new to him and he just cant do it while playing. He uses his mouse instead and practices something that is simply WRONG / BAD.
Instead he could as well just write down the keycombination for each action (one by one) and hammer it into his keyboard until he knows it inside out. Thats isolated training. After he did this for like 1 week (yeah it doesnt need much longer) he can actually do those actions with a high speed and accuracy. Then he starts putting them together one by one.
E.g. play a game with only building units and workers, then you add supply buildings.. then you add production buildings.
A player practicing this way will never mess up or practice anything wrong, since he has the basic skills needed.
There is a reason why players using that method learn up to 10 times as fast and macro VERY good after only a few weeks of practice, while players who just play a lot, need a long time and still have major flaws in their mechanics.
As i said.. at some point, when the player is really confident in macroing, he starts playing against real opponents, but at that point he is already so good, that the only "new thing" is the opponent. Once again the player learned the basics skills before, allowing him to not mess up and therefore not learn something wrong.
--
For decision making.. some of you might feel offended by this, but its not meant that way! Really!
There is a huge difference between knowledge/experience and deep understanding. Most players, i bet even many of the pros/semi pros and coaches as well, do not have deep game understanding, but knowledge.
This means, instead of analyzing a situation based on its variables, they have a list in their mind that includes a lot of "if then else" lines.
"If my opponents does ___ then i do ____"
this is not deep understanding, but only experience/knowledge.
Deep understanding means, to know the formular behind it:
Can you answer the question: Given a situation S, how to figure out the best decision, D ?
If your first thought is: "Well if this istuation is ___ then i need to do ___ " you obivously do not know how to figure out the best decision in a random situation.
Deep understanding means you have a formular like D = D(S), meaning you have an algorithm that uses all the variables to find out the best decision in that situation. Further, its the SAME algorithm for every possible game situation. The variables just produce a different result but do not change the used algorithm.
Do not get me wrong here, using the algorithm (and there is one btw) takes too long to use it while playing. Therefore the thing you really need is the knowledge/experience. (E.g. as an engineer i do not understand all the math i am using.. but trying to understand it only wastes time.. using it only is much faster and i know how to use it, same as most people do not know how their pc works but are fine using it and can even help you if something is going wrong)
For teaching however, it is important to actually have this understanding. The reason is quite simple: A new player, who doesnt have the knowledge, needs a looooong time to read all the stuff, try it in games, fail or succeed, evaluate everything one by one etc.. Learning this knowledge takes a lot of time if you simply play a lot and read some guides. You basically got to set up a list with "If A then B", with endless lines, since there are so many possible situations and reactions.
If however... a new player knows the theory behind this and has a formular to calculate the best decision instead of running 100 games in trial and error, he can actually increase the speed of gathering the knowledge A LOT. Its usually enough to just watch a special build and use the "formular" on it, to figure out how to beat it. So 1 or 2 games against a build can be enough to fully understand its stregths and weaknesses.
Even with this formular it takes some time to actually gather the knowledge, but its WAY faster than by playing a lot.
|
On March 21 2013 08:46 ROOTMinigun wrote:Show nested quote +On March 21 2013 08:43 Shikyo wrote:On March 21 2013 07:47 ROOTMinigun wrote:On March 21 2013 07:34 JustAGame wrote:On March 21 2013 06:10 ROOTMinigun wrote:
Where are you getting this information?
What kind of exercises do you give your students ? There isn't better exercises for starcraft 2 than queing up ladder games. I'll totally disagree with this. Of course my example will be from Brood War, but in it I was a 60 APM player who knew some things and the general idea of how to play but still was really really bad. After like 300 games of iccup I still didn't improve much at all, so I decided to just practice APM and multitasking. After about a week of just wanting to become faster and faster and learn to control units and macro at the same time, my APM went up to around 250 and after a while I went up to C-rank with like a 21-3 w/l(Had never even been near C before that) and so on. Mass laddering wouldn't have helped with that at all(or maybe it would have by spending like 20 times the amount of time), it was very specific training to improve a very specific point. Mass laddering is in my opinion ONLY useful if you do them to practice a specific point. After you reach it and it becomes natural (<- important), you are to stop laddering, gain a new specific focus, practice it 1v0, and then focus on improving it while laddering . The above is entirely my opinion. Everyone is allowed to disagree. I am not saying that I am objectively correct at all. I do heavily disagree with mass ladder being even close to a good way to improve, though. The tricks I'm talking about are mental tricks to -remember- making probes and pylons, not useless things like saving 5 minerals by building pylon x with a specific probe I had 60 apm when I first started this game. How did I improve this? I laddered and now I have around 250-300. If you are wanting to improve one thing specifically than ofc just going to a custom game or whatever is going to improve that. But most people I am talking about don't have the time to specifically set aside for "increasing apm". Overall laddering is going to be the best use of their time.
Hmm, I've seen some of your games played-figures. I imagine it's in the tens of thousands by now? let's just assume it's 10000. That's hmm... 1000 hours.
I am going to argue that if a player does specialized training exercises for 900 hours and plays ladder for 100 hours after that, they're going to improve at a faster rate than if they had only played ladder for 1000 hours. Practicing a specific thing with a teammate for example does count as specialized training.
It also doesn't stop there. If you lose to something, you see what you lost to. You see why you lost. Can your build not deal with it? If it cannot, look for his build order flags(or if he sucks, recreate it and figure them out). After identifying them, see how you can scout them and prepare for the build, optimally the second the attack would hit.
An easy old example for ZvP, I died to a 1gas 4gate back in like 2011. So I went and tried to perfect the build, figured that it can hit at 5:55 or whatever it was if you do the build perfectly, and then had my build have barely enough to defend at 5:55 after scouting the build order flags that show what he's doing(unit x or building x or lack of them at time y). After that I never lost to that build again mostly because no one actually did do it perfectly. I also believe that this is far more efficient than just grinding ladder after you lose.
A second example although I haven't actually done this: Let's say you lose in ZvT against a double medivac Marine drop, one at the main and one at the natural. Instead of going "FUCK NOOB CHEESER BG" -> ragequit into the next game and losing to this again, you can do the exact same thing. Look for the build order flags, figure out how to scout it, figure out when it hits when it's done perfectly, and have enough to stop it when it's done perfectly. Something like having seperate control groups of Zerglings that still are enough to take them on if the marines are dropped in the same place or something, I don't know in specific. After that You just practice yourself to mentally prepare for it when you scout the flags(if you cannot pinpoint it you want to have another flag branch or just need to prepare for multiple options), and after this you will hopefully never lose to that thing again, and never need to type "FUCK NOOB CHEESER BG" for example.
JAG's post above mine is really nice by the way.
|
What experience are you basing this off of? It works, whether you like it or believe it, it does. You can say it doesn't all you want.
Well I base it off my understanding of human behavior. I guess most people who watch that video will be able to identify them selves with the "confused" student. You say it works? Have you any proof of that? Do you have any teaching credentials (decent education level?), or are you just basing this off analogies? Like you may say that many of students speaks positively off your lessons and you may think its a proof that the students improve after your coaching lessons, but the question still remains: How do you know that they wouldn't have improved anyway?
And please remember that I have never argued that they couldn't improve in the short-term due to your lessons (because following a BO blindly can take a player from bronze to silver faster, but in the proces of going from bronze to to diamond, your coaching won't have any effect).
So using analogies or empiral data to support your theory that you coaching helps students over a longer period is almost useless as there simply are too many factors that isn't being taking into account. Therefore the optimal way to asses whether your coaching helps is to get "coaching/teaching experts" to evaluate your coaching method. Im no expert, but I would guess that they would dismiss your technique as efficient.
Regarding you receiving 0 complaints: That isn't unexpected. But first of all we need to make a distinction between indirect complaints and direct complaints; Whenever you see a student not having fully understood why he should follow your adviced BO, then you have to count that as a failure of your own because chances are you didn't do a good enough job as a coach.
Secondly - Why would they complain directly? You sounds like a nice guy and thus people can/will symphasize with you.
Also, often times they do not know they are receiving suboptimal coaching - Instead, they go into the coaching very humble and typically they have you as one of their favourite players which means they are biased in their evaluations. During the coaching they get put under a lot of stress and they will never have time to consider whether this coaching actually helps them.
Now after the coaching it is my guess that they initially think they have improved. Maybe they will watch the VOD of the coaching again and try to understand what you actually said - But over time they will forget it, because they never actually understood why they had to do x and y.
At least that is my theory, but obivously I am no expert. If anyone has an expertise in teaching I would appreciate if you would confirm/disconfirm my theory.
This is incredibly true, especially if you're coaching someone who has played a decent number of games and therefore has a decent amount of APM (say, >60 or something). Most people who are in lower leagues just don't understand how much their play will improve if they just get in the habit of making probes, pylons and warping in units every 20-30 seconds. I have very little experience coaching, but of people I have coached I often hear back about how much their play has improve because I told them to use camera hotkeys to warp in units, or some other basic macro skill.
I think that, today, most gold+ players know the importance of making probes, but the challenge is from a mechanical perspective, not a "decision-making" perspective. So telling a gold+ playes to make probes every 15th second won't have any long-time effect of his play. The only way to make him improve his macro is to tell him to play a shitton of ladder games (and focus on it).
But I don't think coaching should be used to improve mechanics (maybe bronze players are the exception here). But generally gold/plat players know that they are supposed to spend their money, but they just don't have the apm yet. On the other hand there are many decisions they make during the game which they don't realize are suboptimal, and therefore you as a coach needs to make sure that these bad decisions get removed from his gameplay.
I think Miniguns approach to solve that problem is this; "Go there with your army."
But the student won't really understand why he is supposed to go there. Instead, I think it is important to just focus on as few subjects as possible during a lessons - For instance I believe one could use an hour just discussing army positioning.
You could start the lesson off by analyzing and discussing the various factors which determine how you position your army during the game. Then you could show a few replays of pro's to demonstrate your points, and then maybe the student could try to play a game him selv where he only focuss's on army position. That would imply that you wouldn't tell him to scout/build probes/build supply depots etc as this takes his attention away from the army positioning part.
Obivously mastering army positioning takes a shitton of hours, but at least now the student will understand the neccesary factors and will be able to improve faster.
|
On March 21 2013 20:10 JustAGame wrote:Show nested quote +On March 21 2013 11:33 iSTime wrote:On March 21 2013 09:45 JustAGame wrote:On March 21 2013 08:46 ROOTMinigun wrote:
You are giving them "exercises" I suppose. Only they are practicing many exercises at once. Although they COULD if they wanted to only practice one at a time. Such as trying to use observer more, trying to get supply blocked less, or just trying to follow the build properly. People who climp do not start climbing some rocks. That would lead to half or even more of them hurting themselves or dying right away. They start with general sports to get the needed fitness (unless they got this already ofc). After that they usually train their strength for the hands and fingers and practice in special walls with colored spots to grab ( i dont know the word.. sry). After they actually practice the endurance, strength and some basic climbing skills, they do the real thing. After all that is done.. yes the real wall is very good practice, while additional isolated exercises are usually done to warm up or practice when they feel the need. The reason the real wall is the "best" training is not because its such an efficient way to practice. Its simply the fact, that each isolated exercise is "isolated" and at some point its needed to bring them all together. There is no other way to do so. In sc2 its the same, you got basic skills like mechanical skills, that are best practiced in isolated exercises. Once again: playing the game has very little efficiency at practicing mechanics, simply due to the fact that the early game is so easy to handle that you have a low practice effect, while the late game is too much too handle for most players. The best training is isolated mechanics exercises. After those are done (remember the basics for climbing) you need to get to the real thing. Even though the efficiency is very low, there is no other way, simply because isolated exercises are only useful for the basics but wont help you to combine it all. -> The best way to practice mechanics is by doing isolated exercises and after (takes some weeks) you slowly combine it all until you can play a full game. Meaning: You dont practice your finger/hand strength and your endurance in mid air in a real wall (that might hurt or kill you), same as you should not practice the speed and precision of several keycombinations while playing sc2. I probably shouldn't have used climbing as an analogy since people aren't going to be familiar with it, but: First of all a lot of people (probably the majority of them nowadays) wouldn't differentiate by saying that climbing outdoors is rock climbing while climbing indoors is training. Also, "more than half" of people dying or being seriously injured if they started by climbing outdoors is blatantly absurd. That's how the sport began, since climbing gyms didn't exist, and far fewer than half of them died or got injured. Secondly, if someone is bad at climbing, they'll be climbing 5.5 or 5.6 (equivalent to bronze league). Nobody would suggest to these people that they do targeted training, they would just say "climb more." (maybe if they're fat someone might suggest diet+running to lose some weight) Even people who are climbing in the 5.10 range are probably best off just climbing more, and a lot of elite climbers got into 5.12 territory or higher before they ever trained, which is basically GM-level of difficulty. People generally don't suggest practicing finger strength (campus board/hangboard/etc.) until they're at least climbing ~5.11, since it's just not as effective and it's more likely to lead to injury. In both climbing and SC2, it is probably true that there are more efficient ways to improve than just climbing and playing SC2. However, both "sports" are in their relative infancy compared to things like basketball/football/olympic lifting/etc. People haven't developed really effective training methodologies other than "just play more" yet, and they probably won't for a long time. I think the same holds for SC2. Unless someone is at least masters, they'll probably be best off just playing more games and getting some basic guidance from a coach about how to macro. Once you're already really good, maybe there are some basic multitask maps that are useful (I know that vVvTitan had a map that he played on to do injects+creep spread while macroing which he claimed helped him a lot), but I just doubt that these things are that effective for players who aren't already pretty good. As for the rest of your post, I'll just say that a) I don't think it's that hard for someone to analyze their own replay and b) if you do have a coach, he'll probably look at the replay and tell you you had 3k/2k and only used 1 hotkey the whole game. And he'll be right that this is why you lost. Every now and then the loss will be to something like not knowing how to beat a 6 pool, but in my experience those are less common. Btw, just to say this again: you are totally right about how boring isolated training is. Its really no fun at all and can ruin the game for you. But its still the most efficient way of practicing. Casuals who just want to improve but do not actually care about how fast or how far they get, shouldnt do it. What i said about the injuries was meant at the highest level of climbing. If an untrained person starts at the highest difficulty right away, he will hurt himself most likely. Climbing an indoor beginner wall is sick easy compared to climbing at the highest difficulty. Playing at bronze without making mistakes is the same as playing in masters. The game is the same. You have the same units, the same stuff, Yes your opponent is weaker, but that only means that you can do some mistakes and still win. Climbing a low level wall is a different thing than climbing a high level wall. Its "not the same game". You may not make mistakes at both, because if you do so.. you will fall. Climbing at lower difficulty is like isolated exercise, since you artificialy lower your total workload. Playing at bronze is the same "do it all at once" as master league, with the difference that the bronze league player cannot do it and messes up left and right. To get a real comparism to climbing: make it 1v1. If i start climbing at the highest possible difficulty against another beginner, i will not practice, but mostlikely go straight to the hospital (same as he does). As i said.. the difficulty levels are actually some form of isolated training.
You asked rhetorically why SC2 was different than everything else in that people get better at everything else by doing specific training. I put forth the example of rock climbing, where a lot of the world's top climbers literally don't train except by climbing, and you just keep throwing out random things that aren't true about a sport you clearly know little about. (for example, if a beginner tried to climb at the hardest level, they wouldn't get injured - they would just fail to get off the ground)
I don't know how I can possibly convince you, except here are some interviews from some of the world's best climbers:
http://www.bohusbergen.se/pages/Archive/Profiles/sharmatrain.html
"Interviewer: So when you walk into the gym you never say, "Today, I'm going to boulder or today, I'm going to campus."
Chris Sharma: No, I just do what I feel like."
Not to mention the fact that the way he trained for this, at 0:41 was by trying it 50+ times until he stuck it.
http://www.rockclimbing.com/Articles/General/Daniel_Woods_Professional_Climber_with_no_limits__858.html
"The most challenging thing about training is motivation. All I want to do is climb but I recognize that some things cannot be done unless I get stronger or have more experience. I used to do the typical training such as pull ups, push ups, ab workouts, 1 arm hangs and pull ups etc. but it got too boring. Now I feel the best method is to climb as much as possible and travel to new areas with new stone. Your psyche is maintained and you gain more experience."
There is at least one activity other than SC2 where top performers think that the best training is the activity itself. I've offered my best explanation as to why this is true (namely, that each of these activities is in a relative infancy and effective training methods don't exist).
|
On March 21 2013 07:47 ROOTMinigun wrote:Show nested quote +On March 21 2013 07:34 JustAGame wrote:On March 21 2013 06:10 ROOTMinigun wrote:
Where are you getting this information?
What kind of exercises do you give your students ? There isn't better exercises for starcraft 2 than queing up ladder games.
Obviously Minigun is a much better and more accomplished player than me, but he has also spent a lot more time on the game than me.
Anyway, I find laddering to be important, but less important than developing and refining builds, watching pro games and streams, and watching replays of lost games to find out how I could do do better.
So I spent (I haven't really been into competitive SC2 for a while, but plan to pick it up again soon) roughly 25% laddering, 40% drilling build orders in a build order tester, 20% watching pro-games/streams and 15% watching replays. I also spent a lot of time doing mental training, which I didn't account for.
That got to me into high Masters (playing GM's) after ~100 games, and I started in Platinum. And I was an absolute abomination of a player when I began, with basically no RTS experience (not that I'm really good now or anything). Had I continued laddering without watching Day[9] tournaments, and pro-streams, without drilling build orders or watching replays, then I'm pretty sure I'd be a high Platinum or low-Diamond player right now at very best. I'd actually probably be worse (Gold), because my builds were awful.
Knowing what to do is what allows you to win games. You figure that out by watching the pros. Trying to figure things out on the fly (ie just laddering alone) will lead you down the wrong path, and you'll start doing things that aren't viable, even though your improvisation might work at whatever level you're at, you'll just have to relearn the "correct" way when you reach the level where your improvisations aren't viable.
Now as for what a coach can do for you, they can show you the correct way to do things in a much more timely fashion than you can figure out by watching pros. Of course the trade off is cash and also, no pro is going to let you know their best secrets.
Once you've reached the top, and you know and understand the game, and have many build orders drilled into you well, then, sure laddering is the best thing you can do, and it should be a much larger percentage of your time than 25%.
The analogy above, regarding rock climbing is incorrect. Mental training is just as important, if not more important than physical training. Thus if you spend all your time rock climbing, and no time training yourself mentally, you'll do far worse than someone who spends 50% of their time doing each (assuming you both have the same amount of time to spend on rock climbing and the same potential).
This has been proven time and again in the highest levels of competition, including the Olympics.
|
On March 22 2013 06:48 iSTime wrote:
There is at least one activity other than SC2 where top performers think that the best training is the activity itself. I've offered my best explanation as to why this is true (namely, that each of these activities is in a relative infancy and effective training methods don't exist).
I pointed out the more effective training methods for sc2 in more than one post, no idea why you still say they do not exist.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
